A senior executive at al-Jazeera English bypassed the channel's former head of planning, Jo Burgin, and preferred to liaise instead with her Arab male deputy, an employment tribunal was told today.

Deputy managing director Ibrahim Helal was today accused of liaising with Burgin's deputy over two key stories, in evidence given during the fifth day of the employment tribunal brought by Burgin, who is claiming discrimination on the grounds of sex, race and religion.

Burgin's legal representative, Jonathan Cohen, said that Helal "sidelined" Burgin over the planning of staff deployment to the World Economic Forum in Davos and over coverage of the inquest into the death of British human rights activist Tom Hurndall, who was killed in Gaza in 2004.

The hearing was presented with emails in which Helal apparently consulted Burgin's junior staff including her deputy about the coverage of the two stories.

Helal described the stories as minor, prompting a rebuttal from Cohen.

"It is rubbish to say that you didn't send this [email] to Burgin because it is a minor story," Cohen said of the email about the Hurndall story.

"It is a planning decision and you went to her deputy and not to her. You thought, didn't you, that the opinion of a western woman on this issue was valueless?"

Helal denied this, insisting that he did not involve the head of planning over all stories and frequently sent emails asking about coverage to all staff members.

He added that he never made a decision based on somebody's gender, nationality or religion.

Giving evidence, Helal said that he often felt "intimidated" by Burgin because she was always "supported" by her husband, Steve Clark, the network's former director of news who later married her.

Helal claimed today that Burgin had encouraged some of her staff not to consult him [Helal] on work decisions.

Cohen dismissed Helal's claim as "nonsense" and asked him why he had not included the claim in his witness statement, which was read out at the tribunal on Friday.

Cohen said that Helal ranked "five points" ahead of Burgin in the company's hierarchy, adding: "It is nonsense to think that someone [Helal] who claims to be an experienced manager would simply not talk to someone in her [Burgin's] position about this matter."

Asked if he had ever undertaken a course dealing with equal opportunities or diversity during his time at the broadcaster, Helal said that he had not and they were not available at al-Jazeera.

He added that he had learned about the subject in his previous job at the BBC and that there was no need to offer such courses at al-Jazeera English "as long as we achieve the goals" and "recruit people on merit".

Burgin is seeking more than £1m from al-Jazeera English through a claim of sexual, race and religious discrimination.

Al-Jazeera English denies all the claims brought against it by Burgin, who left the company in April 2007.

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